Spontaneous mutations tend to reduce fitness in populations of living organisms, but this erosion of fitness is countered by natural selection. This study uses the first mutation accumulation experiment in a mammal to show that even in the absence of natural selection, the rate of fitness loss should not be of concern, which is reassuring for humans. ##### In your coverage, please use this URL to provide access to the freely available paper in PLOS Biology:   http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.3002795 Article Title: An estimate of fitness ...

For uncovering how a cell population helps ensure food, liquid and acid reflux are kept out of our airway – and instead sent to our GI tract – Laura Seeholzer is the winner of the 2024 Eppendorf & Science Prize for Neurobiology. Her findings, detailed in April in Science, have motivated her to study what’s happening with these cells in diseases where this critical protective reflex is compromised. “These findings are crucial for understanding potentially life-saving reflexes that are activated in the airway, ...

AMHERST, Mass. – An interdisciplinary team of researchers led by the University of Massachusetts Amherst recently published work in the prestigious journal Science ­­­calling into question the conclusions of a widely reported study — published in Science in 2023 and funded by Meta — finding the social platform’s algorithms successfully filtered out untrustworthy news surrounding the 2020 election and were not major drivers of misinformation. The UMass Amherst-led team’s work shows that the Meta-funded research was conducted during a short ...

In 2023, Science published the study, “How do social media feed algorithms affect attitudes and behavior in an election campaign?” by Andrew Guess et al. Now, Chhandak Bagchi and colleagues – in an eLetter that will appear on the 2023 study – state that the study’s “reporting and conclusions did not account for a series of temporary emergency changes to Facebook’s news feed algorithm in the wake of the 2020 U.S. presidential election that were designed to diminish the spread of voter-fraud misinformation. This issue may have led readers to misinterpret ...

New interpretations following the recent Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) United States Supreme Court ruling could strip federal protections from up to 90 million acres of U.S. nontidal wetlands – nearly all that exist in the coterminous US – according to a new study. The findings reveal the potential scope and impacts of the regulatory changes and highlight the uncertainty introduced by the ruling. Enacted in 1972, the Clean Water Act (CWA) aims to restore and protect the quality of U.S. waters ...

Inspired by an ancient buried log, researchers present a novel method to remove and store atmospheric carbon for hundreds of years or more. It involves locking woody biomass away in “wood vaults.” The approach could provide a cost-effective solution to mitigate climate change. Achieving net-zero carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions is crucial for combating climate change, yet reducing fossil fuel emissions alone is insufficient to meet the Paris Agreement's targets. To achieve these goals, carbon dioxide removal (CDR) methods must be implemented, including engineering solutions, like direct air capture, ...

Large-scale removal of discarded fishing gear and other plastic debris from the waters of Northwestern Hawaii meaningfully reduced entanglement rates of endangered Hawaiian monk seals, according to a new study. The findings, which are drawn from more than four decades of data, offer promising evidence that marine debris cleanup programs are successful and that reducing plastic inputs and scaling up removal efforts could maximize conservation outcomes across marine ecosystems worldwide. Plastic pollution severely threatens marine ecosystems, ...

By 2100, hospitalizations from diarrheal diseases are predicted to increase in the city of Dhaka in Bangladesh as a result of climate change, even if global warming stays under 2 degrees Celsius. Farhana Haque and colleagues from University College London, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and icddr,b report these findings in a new study published September 26 in the open access journal PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases. As one of the world’s most densely population cities, Dhaka deals with a high burden of diarrheal diseases. While some studies have looked at how weather affects diarrhea in Bangladesh, few have examined the future impact of climate ...

September 26, 2024, Cleveland: Cleveland Clinic researchers have discovered a new bacterium that weakens the immune system in the gut, potentially contributing to certain inflammatory and infectious gut diseases. The team identified the bacterium, Tomasiella immunophila (T. immunophila), which plays a key role in breaking down a crucial immune component of the gut’s multi-faceted protective immune barrier. Identifying this bacterium is the first step to developing new treatments for a variety of inflammatory and infectious gut diseases. These conditions, including inflammatory ...

Francis Crick Institute press release Under strict embargo: 19:00hrs Thursday 26 September 2024 Peer reviewed Experimental study Animals Researchers at the Francis Crick Institute have shown that the balance of bacteria in the gut can influence symptoms of hypopituitarism in mice. They also showed that aspirin was able to improve hormone deficiency symptoms in mice with this condition. People with mutations in a gene called Sox3 develop hypopituitarism, where the pituitary gland doesn’t ...

In a significant breakthrough for the cosmetics industry, researchers have developed a new type of sunscreen using lignin, a naturally abundant polymer, and titanium dioxide (TiO2). The study, led by Yarong Li and Zhiguang Tang, was published in the Journal of Bioresources and Bioproducts and details the innovative use of a dual-modified lignin sub-microsphere to enhance the SPF and improve the color of sunscreens. Lignin, a byproduct of the pulp industry, is known for its UV-absorbing properties and antioxidant capabilities. However, its application in commercial sunscreens has been limited due ...

How did the bodies of animals, including ours, become such fine-tuned movement machines? How vertebrates coordinate the eternal tug-o-war between involuntary reflexes and seamless voluntary movements is a mystery that Francisco Valero-Cuevas’ Lab in USC Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering, set out to understand. The Lab’s newest computational paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) adds to the thought leadership about the processing of sensory information and control of reflexes during voluntary movements—with implications as to how its disruption could ...

Crohn’s disease — an autoimmune disorder — is characterized by chronic inflammation of the digestive tract, resulting in a slew of debilitating gastrointestinal symptoms that vary from patient to patient. Complications of the disease can destroy the gut lining, requiring repeated surgeries. The poorly understood condition, which currently has no cure and few treatment options, often strikes young people, causing significant ill-health throughout their lifetime. One barrier to making progress in developing treatments has been the lack of preclinical animal models that accurately ...

HERSHEY, Pa. — The risk of sudden unexpected infant death (SUID) and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) increased during the COVID-19 pandemic compared to the pre-pandemic period, especially in 2021, according to a new study led by researchers at the Penn State College of Medicine. Monthly increases in SUID in 2021 coincided with a resurgence of seasonal respiratory viruses, particularly respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), suggesting that the shift in SUID rates may be associated with altered infectious disease transmission. They ...

A rescue effort can take many forms – a life raft, a firehose, an airlift. For animals whose populations are in decline from inbreeding, genetics itself can be a lifesaver.  Genomic research led by the University of California, Davis, reveals clues about montane red foxes’ distant past that may prove critical to their future survival. The study, published in the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution, examines the potential for genetic rescue to help restore populations of these mountain-dwelling red foxes. The research is especially relevant for the estimated ...

A groundbreaking new study conducted by a team of researchers from Arizona State University, University of Washington and the University of Texas at Austin reveals that extreme heat significantly alters how people go about their daily lives, influencing everything from time spent at home to transportation choices. The study, titled "Understanding How Extreme Heat Impacts Human Activity-Mobility and Time Use Patterns," was recently published in Transportation Research Part D and underscores the urgent need for policy action ...

Digital Science announces ReadCube Pro, an AI-powered expansion of ReadCube, offering researchers new tools to simplify and accelerate literature management and literature monitoring workflows. The new AI Assistant and Literature Monitoring in ReadCube – an award-winning leader in literature management and full-text document delivery – transform the way research teams access, organize, review and monitor scholarly literature by providing them with enhanced search capabilities while helping to significantly reduce time spent ...

Leuven, 26 September 2024 –  A team of scientists led by Prof. Patrik Verstreken (VIB-KU Leuven) has identified a new genetic mutation that may cause a form of early-onset Parkinsonism. The mutation, located in a gene called SGIP1, was discovered in an Arab family with a history of Parkinson's symptoms that began at a young age. The study reveals that this mutation affects how brain cells communicate, providing new insights into the disease's development and potential treatment strategies. A genetic clue to Parkinsonism Parkinsonism is a group of neurological disorders that share similar symptoms, including motor dysfunction ...

More than a dozen bacterial species among the hundreds that live in people’s mouths have been linked to a collective 50% increased chance of developing head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC), a new study shows. Some of these microbes had previously been shown to contribute to periodontal disease, serious gum infections that can eat away at the jawbone and the soft tissues that surround teeth. Experts have long observed that those with poor oral health are statistically more vulnerable than those with healthier ...

Sea robins are unusual animals with the body of a fish, wings of a bird, and walking legs of a crab. Now, researchers show that the legs of the sea robin aren’t just used for walking. In fact, they are bona fide sensory organs used to find buried prey while digging. This work appears in two studies published in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on September 26. “This is a fish that grew legs using the same genes that contribute to the development of our limbs and then repurposed these legs to find ...

Sea robins are ocean fish particularly suited to their bottom-dwelling lifestyle:  Six leg-like appendages make them so adept at scurrying, digging, and finding prey that other fish tend to hang out with them and pilfer their spoils. A chance encounter in 2019 with these strange, legged fish at Cape Cod’s Marine Biological Laboratory was enough to inspire Corey Allard to want to study them.   “We saw they had some sea robins in a tank, and they showed them to us, because they know we like weird animals,” said Allard, a ...

The number of days per year that are simultaneously extremely hot, dry, and have a high fire risk have as much as tripled since 1970 in some parts of South America. The results are published in a study in Communications Earth & Environment. South America is warming at a similar rate to the global average. However, some regions of the subcontinent are more at risk of the co-occurrence of multiple climate extremes. These compound extremes can have amplified impacts on ecosystems, economy, and human health. Raúl Cordero and colleagues calculated the number of days per year that each approximately 30 by 30 km grid ...

About The Study: This cross-sectional study found increased rates of both sudden unexpected infant death (SUID) and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) during the COVID-19 pandemic, with a significant shift in epidemiology from the pre-pandemic period noted in June to December 2021. These findings support the hypothesis that off-season resurgences in endemic infectious pathogens may be associated with SUID rates, with respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) rates in the U.S. closely approximating this shift. Further investigation into the role ...

About The Study: This study highlights the wide variation of nonprofit hospitals’ tax benefit across states, its high concentration among a small number of hospitals, and the primary role played by state and local taxes. Policy efforts to strengthen nonprofit hospitals’ taxpayer accountability are likely to be more effective when pursued at the local level. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Ge Bai, PhD, CPA, email gbai@jhu.edu. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media ...

Scientists at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and their colleagues have identified a gene responsible for some inherited retinal diseases (IRDs), which are a group of disorders that damage the eye’s light-sensing retina and threatens vision. Though IRDs affect more than 2 million people worldwide, each individual disease is rare, complicating efforts to identify enough people to study and conduct clinical trials to develop treatment. The study’s findings published today in JAMA Ophthalmology. In a small study of six unrelated participants, researchers linked the gene UBAP1L to different forms of ...